Counting on the Census Numbers

Censuses of the Israelites found in Numbers have been mulled over because of both their large values and the particulars of those values. Efforts to fit the large numbers of Israelites escaping Egypt into something historically plausible or suggest a lexical development focus on reinterpreting the standard counter for “thousands”, elep (אלף). The most recent attempts use mathematical models, but the results have not been rigorously tested. A statistical evaluation finds the efforts wanting, and the underlying numbers are most likely artificial. The origin of the census values is then proposed, indicating source relationships within the Pentateuch rather than some archaic, pre-CBH features and sources. Mathematical tests also limit what esoteric meanings the census numbers might have.